Thursday, January 19, 2012

Solar Feed-in Tariffs Under Review « German Energy Blog

"He wanted to maintain the feed-in tariff promotion scheme under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), but discuss further cuts of solar feed-in tariffs with industry, Federal Minister of the Environment Norbert Röttgen (CDU) said at an annual energy industry conference in Berlin. His comments came as a reaction to calls by his colleague Economics Minister Philipp Rösler for a system change due to surging costs following the strong expansion in particular of PV installations in Germany in 2011."

and the article continues to note how the feed-in tariffs are subsidized by consumers who;

...have to pay the so-called EEG surcharge (EEG-Umlage, also called EEG reallocation charge). The surcharge has steadily risen, in particular in 2011, mainly due to the solar boom.Even if the EEG promotion scheme is upheld, the 2011 solar boom is likely to further tariff reductions to avoid overburdening and endangering the whole promotion system. Currently more than half of the EEG reallocation charge can be attributed to solar costs, while solar energy only covers 3% of the electricity demand,